i don't want to set this world on fire

by Leeroy Berlin

the world bursts at the seams
with hookers and blow:
it sings
like brunhilde in a whalebone corset
leading us to dash our minds on rocky shores
chasing the second hand banality
of our borrowed thoughts and rented lives.

we walk through streets turning grey with dawn
losing every shade that haunts our past
and gaining nothing in the deal.

desperate men fuck desperate women
because it's all they can get from each other
with the mountains leveled and the villains assassinated
there's nothing left for sigfried
except to feed himself to tigers twice a night and
three times on saturdays.

the ivory tower is built of innocents.
their bones form buttresses and their ignorance
of the mud and the blood and the beer
holds the whole thing up.

because those of us who have assaulted the memories of our fathers
and given them their due
paid them back three-fold for the names they left us with:
taker-not-maker-whoreson-fool-classwarrior-onepercenter-sue
have found the truth far from your platonic realm
your clean smelling ideals have no home and no meaning in this dungeon
of blood and piss and sweat and jizz.

i am drooling with your lyssaphobia.
the poison that fills my blood colors me insensate
and its fever cooks my soul
until it's ready to serve, medium-well.

i don't want to set this world on fire, besides
it's too late for the little matches i keep in my hat
to mean anything to anyone.